Smart graphics for visual people
While I was writing about the Visio Spectrum Shape the other day, I started thinking about the various ways that you could use this eyesore fabulous explosion of color in your own Visio SmartShapes.
While the spectrum offers a rainbow of tints, it only comes in one form: RECTANGLE. So what if you want to spice up some arrows, or circles, or…flowchart shapes?
In our last article on smart frames, we built a SmartShape that maintained a constant border-thickness, no matter the size of the shape.
It was a fairly simple frame, it got the job done, but it had a uniform frame-thickness all the way around, and offered no way for an end-user to change that thickness.
In this article, we’ll add some flexibility to the shape by making separate margin parameters for each side. We’ll also expose the margin settings to the user via Shape Data fields.
If you create elevation drawings for rack systems, for cabinetry, for A/V systems with TVs and video monitors, or for walls with doors and windows, you’ll find yourself needing frame shapes.
And while your equipment may come in different sizes, the frames should maintain consistency when they are stretched.
For example, you may have several sizes of monitor: 19-inch, 21-inch, 48-inch, etc. Even though the picture gets bigger, the bezel around the display stays the same thickness. You get more display area, not more plastic!
A Visio SmartShape offers an elegant way to depict these objects. With a little bit of ShapeSheet programming, you can make one shape that can do the job of several!
We’ll call these shapes Smart Frames. This article is the first installment in a series about creating and understanding Smart Frame shapes in Visio! So enjoy this article and stay tuned in the future!
You can learn a lot from bad examples.
Call it learning-from-our-mistakes, anti-patterns, or devilish fun, there’s a lot to be gained by looking at how-not-to-do-it.
Those of us over 30 might remember our first introduction to BASIC programming, taught to us by our friend Jeff, in the electronics corner at the local super market. While Dad was shopping, Jeff went over to the Commodore Vic 20 demo kiosk and typed the following lines:
10 PRINT "Chris is a turkey!"
20 GOTO 10
Utterly useless, except for the fact that it forever singed into our memory the ideas of branching and infinite loops…
[Read more…] about Punish Your Users with (not so) SmartShapes That Misbehave
Many Visio users create detailed elevation drawings of network and audio/visual equipment. The quality of these drawings can impress customers and enable equipment to be more quickly recognized in a diagram.
While vendors such as Altima and D-Tools provide detailed Visio shapes, you may find yourself needing to create your own shapes from time to time.
One method for creating detailed equipment shapes involves tracing an image of the actual gizmo. We’d like to offer a few tips to help you get the job done in Visio!
[Read more…] about Importing Images as Backgrounds for Tracing